FDA approves new drug to treat advanced breast cancer

test tubes - pixabay - research

The Food and Drug Administration has approved Piqray (alpelisib) tablets to treat men and postmenopausal women whose advanced breast cancer is hormone receptor (HR)-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative and PIK3CA-mutated.

Piqray is to be used in combination with the FDA-approved endocrine therapy fulvestrant. The PIK3CA-mutated, advanced or metastatic breast cancer (as detected by an FDA-approved test) is indicated following progression on or after an endocrine-based regimen.

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Surviving breast cancer treatment: lymphedema

side-effects

After the initial breast cancer diagnosis, days are crammed with tests and your brain can become overloaded with what seems like a never-ending list of decisions about treatment. The patient is the center of a large and complex health care team. But once those initial, traditional treatments are history – surgery, chemotherapy, radiation – it’s time to cope and recover from side effects.

Some side effects are less well-known by lay people (or even other doctors, such as cardiac specialists) and may be less well-described by the care team.

One of these side effects is breast cancer–related lymphedema. A form of secondary lymphedema, it is a debilitating byproduct of breast cancer treatment (lymph node removal, either sentinel node biopsy or axillary, and radiation therapy).

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Replumbing the lymphatic system with a pill: still a dream

microscope - pixabay

Currently no U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved therapy can reestablish lymphatic circulation after a patient develops lymphedema. Up to 10 million people in the United States and more than 100 million around the world have lymphedema.

A phase II clinical trial at Stanford University School of Medicine tested whether the drug ubenimex, a leukemia treatment used in Japan, can spur the growth of new lymphatic vessels for patients with secondary leg lymphedema. It was the “first pharmaceutical company-sponsored trial for a medical treatment of lymphedema.”

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Zometa, an adjunctive breast cancer treatment

Zometa is (a necessary) evil.

I got my first infusion on Friday April 22; I had to have some IV fluids because blood work showed slight dehydration on Thursday (migraine on Wednesday = sleeping much of day = not enough fluids ingested).

Very tired on Saturday, which got more pronounced as day went on. Hit a wall at the ballet Saturday evening. Slight nausea. Chills.

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